Internet Radio is like blogging for audio (music and talk) in its promise of leveling the playing field for reaching people around the world. Internet Radio is so cheap, and becoming so easy, that it's just like publishing a website. Which means that not only giant corporations have the power to reach people everywhere, but "little people" have the power to reach each other, and even get out a message to the whole world, when the world is listening. It's extremely powerful, especially in reaching people whose media coverage is purely corporate, like Red Staters who don't even know what it's like to hear an idea not focus tested for its use in controlling their lives. And as Internet Radio is turning into Internet TV, our government's corporate controllers are shutting it down. A month ago, it looked like "game over". But backlash has produced a last chance for keeping alive this revolutionary new medium, without the corporate media owning it before it even has a chance to help us fight them.
Save the Streams needs your help, and you need theirs.
Here's what you can do, how and why:
Earlier this month, the Copyright Office imposed draconian new rules that would have destroyed noncorporate "Internet Radio" (streaming audio), and nipped the arriving "people's multimedia" revolution in the bud. Others also registered their shock at this kick in the face of "democratized media". The prospects for following the new popularity (and thereby power) of blogging with even more powerful and direct media to compete with Hollywood, not just Times Square, looked bleak, with most noncommercial media threatened with immediate extinction. But widespread outrage at the government attack on media freedom, led by NPR, has created the opportunity for people to stop the devastation. The Copyright Office will now reconsider the draconian rates. So it's time to catch up on the background and help Save the Streams, before the corporate government dries them up permanently.